Happy Easter, dear people of St. Peter’s!
Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Thank you to everyone who has leant a hand to make our Lent, Holy Week and Easter such meaningful experiences. Thank you to those who brought soup, salads, and bread for the Lenten Suppers. Thank you to Betty Wells and Solveig Fuentes and others for creating such well-tended space for supper and worship each week. Thank you to all who helped with clean up during lent and on Easter morning - all who set up or tore down chairs. Thanks to all who provided music throughout the season - extra cantors and musicians. Thank you to Joe DeMers for all your good planning and execution in providing us with terrific music. Thank you to all who provided a dish or volunteer time for Easter Brunch! Thank you to our Education team for hosting another successful Easter Event for the Kids! Thank you to Charles Lauger and Lyle Boelter and John Smart for all their leadership in the realm of technology and live-streaming. Thank you to Jim Grutkowski for washing more communion cups than we could count! Lastly, thank you to Darlene Truver who stepped in to cover the office while Janine was out and to Janine Morrow for stepping back in and together for the exceptional administrative work of creating bulletins and all the behind the scenes work of Lent and Easter! Our church is an embarrassment of riches and we are blessed by all who give of themselves to make this ministry happen.
Beyond words of thanks, I’ll leave you with a poem by Jan Richardson which she wrote as a reflection to Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Lord on Easter Sunday. From her book, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, The Magdalene’s Blessing; For Easter Day:
You hardly imagined
Standing here,
Everything you ever loved
Suddenly returned to you,
Looking you in the eye
And calling your name.
And now
You do not know
How to abide this hole
In the center
Of your chest
Where a door
Slams shut
And swings open
At the same time,
Turning on the hinge
Of your aching
And hopeful heart.
I tell you,
This is not a banishment
From the garden.
This is an invitation,
A choice,
A threshold,
A gate.
This is your life
Calling to you
From a place
You could never
Have dreamed,
But now that you
Have glimpsed its edge,
You cannot imagine
Choosing any other way.
So let the tears come
As anointing,
As consecration,
And then
Let them go.
Let this blessing
Gather itself around you.
Let it give you
What you will need
For this journey.
You will not remember
The words-
They do not matter.
All you need to remember
Is how it sounded
When you stood
In the place of death
And heard the living
Call your name.
Joyfully, Pastor Bekki